


the battlefield running down your spine

by ashers_kiss



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (kind of), Additional Warnings Apply, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Kissing, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 23:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3956641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashers_kiss/pseuds/ashers_kiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Okay</i> is such an <i>American</i> concept, such a fallacy, and how could Wanda ever be okay?</p>
            </blockquote>





	the battlefield running down your spine

**Author's Note:**

> [tielan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan) requested "Maria/Wanda, broken" for [such_height's MCU kissing fest](http://such-heights.dreamwidth.org/459287.html), and I mean. It's a _kissing fest_. How was I supposed to resist? 
> 
> No, I don't know what you mean, I didn't take this opportunity to practice writing Wanda because I've stalled on the bigger fic, nooo. ¬____¬
> 
> Content notes: Wanda is going through a _lot_ at the end of AoU, between her powers and that thing at the end that we're not talking about. I think ptsd is probably the best label for how she's feeling here, though I can't claim to be an expert. If you feel like that's something you can't read, or need to know more about first, please, take what care you need to, and please feel free to contact me for details.
> 
> Also posted [here](http://such-heights.dreamwidth.org/459287.html?thread=8363799#cmt8363799), at the fest (which you should check out!).
> 
> Title from [sunkissed battlefields](http://dark-siren.tumblr.com/post/97958303646/lydiamaartin-sunkissed-battlefields) by [astoriamalfoys](http://astoriamalfoys.tumblr.com/post/97740506944/sunkissed-battlefields-commissioned-by).

Her hands shake, sometimes. After a mission, normally. She overexerts herself, she knows, and now there’s no one to stop her, no one close enough to say _enough_.

(That’s not fair, she thinks. Rogers would, perhaps, if only because she’s on his team and he cares about his team.)

Instead, Wanda curls herself into her seat on the jet afterwards, hunches her shoulders over her lap and watches her fingers tremble. (Sometimes, when it’s too much, when she feels like her skin is about to split and there’s no one to hold her together, she pulls her knees up to her chest and locks her arms around them, so tight she can’t even feel the shaking anymore.) The others leave her alone, for a myriad of reasons – too conscious of her loss, too wary of what she can do, what she has done. What she has done to them. And Wanda can’t blame them for it.

Then Maria Hill lowers herself into a crouch in front of her, says, “Hey,” and Wanda’s head jerks up. Hill’s still wearing that politely bland mask, but there’s something…sharp, and open to it, somewhere about her eyes. It might be the hair sticking to her jaw, the grime streaked across her face, or even the smear of blood (not hers, Wanda doesn’t think) on her forehead, it might be none of them, but it makes Wanda’s breath catch at the base of her throat all the same.

“You okay?” Hill asks, and she never looks away from Wanda’s gaze, not even a flicker towards where her hands sit, palm up and quivering. Of all the things Hill is, stupid is not one of them. And Wanda – Wanda can’t even _laugh_ , because it is so _absurd_. _Okay_ is such an _American_ concept, such a fallacy, and how could Wanda ever be okay? She has an empty space at her side and sometimes there are too many voices, too many memories in her head, until she feels like she is about to explode. _Okay_ does not _exist_ for her.

(She has not been _okay_ since she was ten, but at least she was never alone.)

Something hardens in Hill’s gaze, determined, and Wanda expects her to push to her feet, cross the floor of the jet to Rogers, tell him how _unsuitable_ the witch is, how she should be _contained_ – 

Hill shifts instead, adjusts her balance and reaches out, and in her shock Wanda doesn’t even think to pull back. Carefully, slowly enough that Wanda _could_ move, Hill takes her hands, cradles them in her own with a tenderness that makes tears bite at Wanda’s eyes. Then, and only then, does she break their connection, lowers her head to press a soft kiss to Wanda's palms, that she can barely feel through the leather.

And Wanda has never believed that such things make it all better – she has vague memories of being unimpressed by such statements even before her world fell away around her – and her hands do not miraculously _stop_ , but for just a moment, her chest eases.

When Hill lifts her head, there is the curve of a smile on her mouth.


End file.
